A Note on Weyl invariance in gravity and the Wess-Zumino functional

Abstract

It is shown that the explicit calculation of the Wess-Zumino functional pertaining to the breaking term of the Weyl symmetry for the Einstein-Hilbert action allows to restore the Weyl symmetry by introducing the extra dilaton field as Goldstone field. Adding the Wess-Zumino counter-term to the Einstein-Hilbert action reproduces the usual Weyl invariant action used in standard literature. Further consideration might confer to the Einstein-Hilbert action a new status.

arXiv commentContribution to the Special Issue 'Memoriam Raymond Stora', devoted to "Mathematical Foundations of Quantum Field Theory", Nucl. Phys. B

References in corpus (3)

• The Spectral Action Principle
• Weyl Invariance and the Origins of Mass
• Gauge invariant composite fields out of connections, with examples

Cited by in corpus (6)

• Bundle geometry of the connection space, covariant Hamiltonian formalism, the problem of boundaries in gauge theories, and the dressing field method
• The dressing field method of gauge symmetry reduction, a review with examples
• Tractors and Twistors from conformal Cartan geometry: a gauge theoretic approach II. Twistors
• Tractors and Twistors from conformal Cartan geometry: a gauge theoretic approach I. Tractors
• Note on the bundle geometry of field space, variational connections, the dressing field method, & presymplectic structures of gauge theories over bounded regions
• Dilaton from Tractor and Matter Field from Twistor